“Yinzer”

Term: "Yinzer" (or "Yunzer") was historically used to identify the typical blue-collar people from the Pittsburgh region who

growing up in the Pittsburgh region as the son of a blue collar father, and mother who had me wearing pajamas and t-shirts with the Black and gold Steelers logo and the accent was as thick as they come. I was the child of a Yinzer Family. This carried on throughout the years, until I moved to Williamsport, Pa. It was then I realized…I am a yinzer. Simply by one. simple. word. Yinz. I had my education and was quick to get back however, due to the job prospects I ended up moving to the mountains of WV.

After moving to Southern WV in 1994, it was again I realized that it was not the residents of WV who had an accent, it was me. There was one word however that seemed to cause the biggest contraversy….Yep. It was “Yinz”. over the years I had become more and more southern, and living in the mountains of WV you do see so many similarities between the “yinzers” like myself, and the “hillbillys”. now some may refer to themselves as a redneck, but what I have learned is that when a “Hillbilly” is upset, there is a point where he becomes a redneck. Many times we (yinzers and hillbillys) are looked at as dumb, or uneducated, however, if you find yourself stranded either out in the woods, or on a back road outside of monroeville; it will most likely be the Yinzer, or Hillbilly stopping to offer help, and be the person who knows how to fix the problem.

Despite the schematics, I have since embraced that I am a mountain yinzer. Not so much a true hillbilly, but just a yinzer that has been in the mountains of WV for 30 + years.